In Iraq, the Job Opportunity of a LifetimeManaging a $13 Billion Budget With No Experience
Sunday, May 23, 2004; Page A01BAGHDAD -- It was after nightfall when they finally found their offices at Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace -- 11 jet-lagged, sweaty, idealistic volunteers who had come to help Iraq along the road to democracy.
When the U.S. government went looking for people to help rebuild Iraq, they had responded to the call. They supported the war effort and President Bush. Many had strong Republican credentials. They were in their twenties or early thirties and had no foreign service experience. On that first day, Oct. 1, they knew so little about how things worked that they waited hours at the airport for a ride that was never coming. They finally discovered the shuttle bus out of the airport but got off at the wrong stop.
Occupied Iraq was just as Simone Ledeen had imagined -- ornate mosques, soldiers in formation, sand blowing everywhere, "just like on TV." The 28-year-old daughter of neoconservative pundit Michael Ledeen and a recently minted MBA, she had arrived on a military transport plane with the others and was eager to get to work.
They had been hired to perform a low-level task: collecting and organizing statistics, surveys and wish lists from the Iraqi ministries for a report that would be presented to potential donors at the end of the month. But as suicide bombs and rocket attacks became almost daily occurrences, more and more senior staffers defected. In short order, six of the new young hires found themselves managing the country's $13 billion budget, making decisions affecting millions of Iraqis.
Viewed from the outside, their experience illustrates many of the problems that have beset the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), a paucity of experienced applicants, a high turnover rate, bureaucracy, partisanship and turf wars. But within their group, inside the "Green Zone," the four-mile strip surrounded by cement blast walls where Iraq's temporary rulers are based, their seven months at the CPA was the experience of a lifetime. It was defined by long hours, patriotism, friendship, sacrifice and loss.
...more at link...
and
Audit Finds Fraud, Other Abuses in Iraq Contract AwardsFriday, July 30, 2004; Page A10In its second report to Congress, the inspector general's office for the occupation authority that ruled Iraq until recently found significant cases of mismanagement, fraud, missing paperwork and manipulation in the awarding of contracts using millions of dollars of U.S. and Iraqi funds.
The Coalition Provisional Authority inspector general audit, to be released today, uncovered cases of abuse by officials of the occupation government. The report does not name names, but the inspector general's office said its work has resulted in 69 criminal investigations. Forty-two have been closed or sent to other investigative agencies and an additional 27 are still open.
According to the report, a high-ranking adviser for the CPA manipulated the contract-award system to bypass the bidding process for a security contract. The $7.2 million award was revoked, a $2.3 million advance payment was returned and the CPA official was fired. A Defense Department civilian who was a coach for an Iraqi amateur sports team was advanced $40,000 cash for expenses to take the team to compete in other countries. But the coach gave the funds to his military assistant, who gambled the money and lost some of it. The missing amount was then written off as a legitimate loss.
The inspector general's office also found weaknesses in the monitoring process for work done under CPA contracts. Its staffers went to inspect work for a contract for oil pipeline repair and found that employees were not in the field doing the labor specified by the contract. The contractor was docked $3.4 million for improper charges. Auditors also found that a different contractor providing security for the oil pipeline repair crew overcharged by $20,000.
<snip>
Many of the problems it found, like the lack of documentation, were systemic. The report said that the CPA comptroller created polices and regulations -- "although well intended" -- that did not ensure effective control over $600 million in Iraqi funds held as cash. It also could not properly account for property purchased by some of those contracts and valued at between $11.1 million and $26.2 million.
...more at link...
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
